SB 10.18.19
tatropahuya gopalan
krsnah praha vihara-vit
he gopa viharisyamo
dvandvi-bhuya yatha-yatham
Translation:
Krsna, who knows all sports and games, then called together the cowherd boys and spoke as follows: “Hey cowherd boys! Let’s play now! We’ll divide ourselves into two even teams.”
Purport:
The word yatha-yatham means that Krsna naturally wanted the two teams to be evenly matched so that there would be a good game. In addition to the pleasure of sporting, the purpose of the game was to kill the demon Pralamba.